In Detail

Zend Framework 2 is the latest creation of World Wide Web infrastructure company Zend Technologies Ltd. This new PHP framework comes with tons of features and an attractive way of creating applications. Not only is the overall usability of the technology much better, but it also makes your applications more testable, something that is often overlooked.

"Zend Framework 2 Cookbook" will show you how applications are set up in Zend Framework 2 and how you can develop successfully in this massive framework. You will master features like Modules, Views, Controllers, and Authentication. The book also discusses the Event Manager, unit testing, and how to optimize your application.

The book begins with a discussion about setting up Zend Framework 2, and you will also look at how the framework itself works. By the end of this book, you will be able to create entire secure applications on your own and make sure they are tested and optimized for performance as well.

You will learn about sending and receiving e-mails, translation and localization of the application, and how to set up the framework on a Linux web server. You will also learn how to display data from the application to the user by using different display strategies and renderings. The creation of modules will also be discussed. Then, you will move on to look at how to authenticate users and make sure the developer knows how to pick the best method available. Unit testing, debugging, and enhancing the performance will also be covered in this book.

"Zend Framework 2 Cookbook" is a perfect book for anyone who wants to start developing with Zend Framework 2.

Approach

This book is written in a practical, cookbook style with numerous examples and recipes. This style allows you to go both directly to your topic of interest or follow topics throughout a chapter to gain an in-depth knowledge of certain areas.

Who this book is for

'Zend Framework 2 Cookbook" is for PHP developers who are fairly advanced in programming in PHP. It will also be useful for developers who have a keen interest in expanding their knowledge outside the boundaries of simply scripting pages together. As unit testing and MVC will be discussed, it is beneficial for the reader to know what these technologies are, although experience with developing applications is not necessarily essential.

I'm a PHP professional but have not used the Zend Framework before other than completing the Skeleton tutorial application from the ZF website.

So I'm approaching the book as an experienced developer wanting to learn how to develop with the Zend Framework and make the best of it.

Unfortunately the book is disappointing on several levels :

1.) It is poorly translated with bad grammar that affects the meaning of sentences. The author probably has written it in English rather than being translated but it should have been better proof read and edited. This is my most minor complaint but can't be dismissed as explaining technical details like programming requires scrupulous accuracy and some of the sentences in this book are complete gibberish.

2.) It is badly planned and edited with references to language constructs that have not yet been explained, as though they had been explained. It seems an editor has insisted on some re-arrangement of the content without updating the text to reflect the rearrangement.It claims to be a cookbook that isn't necessarily meant to be read in sequence, but I'm still a bit baffled as to why the first main recipe is about internationalisation and localisation while forms and database handling are left for later on.

3. It is too sketchy about some details, explaining some things that probably don't need that much explanation while skipping over complex details as though their explanation goes without saying.

Many books are written by excellent developers who just don't have the skills to explain how and why they develop as they do. And this is one of those books. I've bought another Zend framework 2 book and will perhaps dip back in to this one via the index.

This is practically the best book for an introduction to ZendFramework 2.Not a "Hello World!" kind of book, but actually explaining the framework. Of course, the code samples are in there, but that's standard for an IT book.I'd even say it is one of the best books one could read in order to migrate from ZendFramework 1 to Zend Framework 2. There are no references to ZF1, but having already experience with the old version of the framework, this book will help you understand better and faster the structure of the framework and how to solve specific problems.

The book is written literally as a cookbook. As a cookbook does make you a professional cook, this book won't make you a professional developer. It has number of recepies (such as "using database"), that show you how to use certain parts of ZF2. This approach has some pros and some cons - it's good that you can find the part you're insterested in (like the db) and learn how to use it. But the cookbook format has the problem, that the parts are not connected together. It's like manual, but much better for beginners as it explains things in plain language in more logical order, it starts with the ZF2 basics (routing, events, DI) and slowly moves toward more complex topics such as authentication or performance optimization. I think that a user without any prior ZF2 knowledge would be happy with the book. I, as a little advanced user, missed the more complex topics and mostly connecting the various parts together.

Everyone knows that a cookbook does not necessarily teach you how to cook but shows you how to prepare a specific recipe. On the same breadth this is a Zend Framework 2 Cookbook. This book does not teach you how to build any sort of application as such. Instead it shows you small code segments that you can employ when building your Zend Framework 2 application projects.

Let us now look at what this book brings about. This is a 329 pages book with a lot of tips on how to utilize Zend Framework 2 features. The featured tips range from: handling authentication, catching bugs, optimizing your application performance, handling and decorating forms, translating your application to other languages, to how to configure and use databases. The book has a total of nine chapters. The source code for programs featured in this book can be found at bit.ly/1a5zoUf .

Reading this book is like meeting someone new. You get to appreciate and learn new things and even gain insight into how to do things differently than you have been doing. This is a good book whose value can be best appreciated after having built a Zend Framework 2 application yourself. My verdict - I give this book a 4/5 rating. I highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to polish their Zend Framework 2 programming skills.

Everyone knows that a cookbook does not necessarily teach you how to cook but shows you how to prepare a specific recipe. On the same breadth this is a Zend Framework 2 Cookbook. This book does not teach you how to build any sort of application as such. Instead it shows you small code segments that you can employ when building your Zend Framework 2 application projects.

Let us now look at what this book brings about. This is a 340 pages book with a lot of tips on how to utilize Zend Framework 2 features. The featured tips range from: handling authentication, catching bugs, optimizing your application performance, handling and decorating forms, translating your application to other languages, to how to configure and use databases. The book has a total of nine chapters. The source code for programs featured in this book can be found at bit.ly/1a5zoUf .

Reading this book is like meeting someone new. You get to appreciate and learn new things and even gain insight into how to do things differently than you have been doing. This is a good book whose value can be best appreciated after having built a Zend Framework 2 application yourself. My verdict - I give this book a 4/5 rating.

I must as a matter of fairness and transparency mention that this book was availed to me by the publisher to review.

A few weeks ago, I got this book as a review copy from one of my frnd in Packt. I jus went through the "What this book covers" section of the book, and soon I realized ths book is meant for me.. :)ZF2 Cookbook is a worthy book that explains most of the basic aspects as well as the advanced topics of the framework. That includes handling forms, service manager, dependency injection, etc.What I love the most abt this book is, it explains and illustrates different approaches for a single problem, providing alternate ways/methods to deal with a requirement. This helps me to choose the alternate method when the other won't work with the current situation.Regarding the publisher, this is my 3rd Packt book, and I love the way their books are organized. There is a section named "What this book covers" which explains briefly about the whole chapters of the book. If you get a chance to read this section before buying, I recommend you to read it thoroughly because it helps a lot to make a decision. And their website provide working code of the examples provided in the book which is of great use. I am not sure whether it is done by Packt or the author, but Packt books are always (or atleast 3 times for me) a masterpiece.